


Cipher field missive of Chuzei Din Jenerah

by Tikor



Category: Exalted
Genre: Fanfiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 15:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7513967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tikor/pseuds/Tikor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thoughts and reflections of the Dragon-Blooded leader as he leads an expedition into the Wyld from Sezakan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cipher field missive of Chuzei Din Jenerah

Cypher field missive, 2nd of Resplendent Fire, Year 3350 of our Exalted reign.

The march through the Wyld has resulted in minimal losses so far. Mostly fools trying to eat, climb or piss on creatures they are unfamiliar with. The troop mood is worried but resolute. The losses have sharpened their focus and caused even the infantry to look around with caution. They are resolute because none deserted when we traversed the mushroom cavern between waypoints. I must clarify, normally a mushroom cavern would be a rock structure housing fungus, but our march yesterday brought us to a mushroom as tall as a tree, swaying in the wind. At its base was an entrance similar to the blowhole of a whale. The walls were of fungus and the rocks were growing out of them, as far as I could discern.

Our quarry hasn't moved, as far as I can sense. If the enemy knows of our approach they are not retreating because of it. When I was a boy learning from my father, the animals were always on the move. In the tundra any grazing animal must cover long distances or it will overgraze the land. Consequently the predators had large ranges as well.

My father was a second-generation Sezekani, birthed from two of the original Solar Council, the last such conception I've read or heard tell. He lived to be 312, the longest lifespan of a Sezakani I've been able to find, probably on account of his Aspect, Wood. I hope the contemporary Wood, Hue Machee, does not learn the secret to his longevity. He had no wings. He treated everyone like an equal, even the flightless. They were not his equal. No one was.

Hue Wisp needs to hear more about my father. 

Cipher field missive, 15th of Resplendent Fire, Year 3350 of our Exalted reign.

The date at the beginning of this missive is approximate. When journeying through waypoints time is dilated in ways unrelated to the movement of the sun, moon and stars. There is nothing new to report in this missive. We have been crawling along the same tar-black ice for what seems like days. Our supplies have been holding out, with even less spoilage than anticipated. The troops appear to have adapted to the rigors of the Wyld even better than expected. Personal note: compare subjective time to objective time when we return to Sezakan.

Once before in Sezakan's past we ventured beyond the wall in strength. But that time we brought civilians en masse for settlement. We swore an alliance with the barbarians to the East, together to build a wall facing North. Together to man it, together to farm in its shadow, together to feast on the harvest that each grew on their lands. But some things we never got around to sharing. Our land was to the West, theirs to the East. Our daughters married our sons, their daughters married their sons. Our traders had about as much luck with them as the other civilizations of the North, that is little, for our language was too far different between Old Realm and that bastardized barbarian tongue of theirs and our ways too distinct. It is well known to us that the Order Conferring Trade Pattern can flourish anywhere Jade coins, especially white ones, are haggled over and change hands, but they had different superstitions about keeping the Wyld at bay. They refused our white coins, demanding green ones made from some sort of Jade alloy and minted in a way that was foreign to us. 

At the time of the outpost, in my youth, we had wonders of the First Age still operational. Each decade another fell due to inadequate maintenance. We chopped them up into tiny bits of Jade and melted silver around them to give them weight and luster. These silver coins the barbarians accepted readily enough. Anytime silver came up so did a "Guild" which I understand roughly translates to a mortal Gens though they aren't of blood relation. The Valyn, as they called themselves, saw it as only natural that a single coin be worth a stack of furs or a bucket of ivory chips. We never let on just how much silver was mined from the mountain below Sezakan, or that we'd cored them with Jade to establish the Order Conferring Trade Pattern, or how much coin we had. 

Anyway, this wall was a wonder to behold. As impressive in scope as the naiveté that built it. One hundred feet of airstone with switchback stairs every half mile, ten miles long in total, with a keep at both ends. The south side of the wall held ledges sloped into aqueducts that would irrigate the fields below with snowmelt the whole growing season long. We grew corn, wheat, blueberries and strawberries in abundance back then. Not just these damnable roots we call field rations day in and day out. The last of the jam, cornmeal and wheat flower ran out before the current generation was born. Sezekani youth who don't fly for trade probably don't even know the taste of true wheat bread. Those loaves always tasted like summer to me. Even in the winter, frozen through with ice-flecks I felt like I was standing in the sunshine when I bit into them. Potato bread reminds me of lean times.

How did it end? That is the most relevant point to our current expedition, yet the least clear in my memory. Not in some lover's quarrel though I recall more than a few wingless born to winged parents around that time. Not even over commerce or security disputes with the Valyn - the artificial valley was too important to each culture. The Valyn weren't accustomed to trading among themselves with coin regularly - they valued it too much for most services - they knew enough to negotiate with anyone with wings with respect even around the language barrier which kept things civilized. It ended, like most things beyond the dome of the First Shrine of Sunset, with the Winter Folk.

To this day I still wonder if one of the Valyn tipped the Fair Folk off. Damned Raksha have ways of infiltrating a mortal's mind. Even a Dragon-Blooded pup is susceptible if certain Charms are not studied. Or perhaps one of the elders got feeble-minded and misty-eyed about the old days of honor, sacrifice, piety, and brutal near-starvation conditions on the open tundra to willingly seek out the Raksha and give the information up. Somebody should have lectured any turncoat Valyn of the constant uncertainty and harsh conditions of their grandfathers; starving babies of mothers too ill fed to produce milk and countless extremities lost to cold for want of firewood. 

However they came, come they did; prepared. Our host had no chance against theirs, outnumbered two to one on the ground and five to one in the air and that's counting the civilians. There was no sense in it but to retreat. I'd never overestimated the sense of the Valyn and true to form they were too stubborn to flee the field. They were slaughtered. The rest of the Valyn tribes even further east haven't gotten over it and no one uses the wall now. The aqueducts feed a wild forest. I've tried to explain to them in diplomatic terms the reasons we couldn't stand with their cousins, but in these tense talks they never seem to understand the meaning of retreat. If my option besides battle was the open tundra without wings or any supplies, maybe I would have a hard time finding value in retreat as well. But we weren't their allies for nothing; we could have set them back on their feet again. Instead, they stood and died. To them we're the betrayers from some land they cannot discern, who should just leave them in peace. I don't expect a pact like that cropping up with the Valyn for at least another century or two once the stories of grandfather's brother dying due to the cowardice of the winged folk are worn out but songs the magical land of plenty behind a wall are still sung of around the campfire.

In Sezakan the message was to never settle beyond the First Shrine of Sunset; never keep anything of value out of your nest. Because of our relative lack of military and civilian losses and the utter necessity to venture out to gain the means to survive, this did not extend to the traders, huntresses, or the military. But I fear we may set another precedent here in this expedition. One that could be detrimental to Sezakan as a whole if too few of us return home. I know it will cost the lives of some fellow citizens to retrieve my great-nephew Acato and to retaliate against the Fair Folk. This is a price I have accepted and the people of Sezakan have accepted. What I hope we can all accept later, no matter how dear the cost, is that we cannot survive by the bounty of the First Shrine of Sunset alone. That we cannot let Creation pass us by. That even if we must keep our home a secret, to have that ignorance reflected within us to the outer world would be a slow death. We cannot stop learning else we cannot protect ourselves. We must know our enemies. We must cultivate friends.

I expect the journey through this waypoint to end soon. My tracking indicates that our quarry is in the next waypoint. May the Unconquered Sun have mercy on us all, even outside the brilliance of his rays.


End file.
